Pink Floyd at the Dome

Pink Floyd, 1972. Image courtesy of Jill Furmanovsky.

Forty years ago, on 20 January 1972, rock band Pink Floyd came to Brighton to perform at The Dome. This wasn’t their first show in the town, nor even their debut performance at The Dome; what makes it stand out is the fact that it was the very first time material from the iconic album, The Dark Side of the Moon, was performed in public.

The Brighton Gazette, reporting in advance of the event, pointed out that, ‘It would be difficult to recall a Floyd concert at the Dome which did not feature something totally new and unexpected…they are the first true minstrels of the technological age and for that alone they fully deserve their success.’

The material was certainly new: according to a review in New Musical Express, the band were still arranging it on their way to Brighton and it wasn’t recorded until later in the year. Unfortunately, the performance itself – in front of a capacity crowd – was interrupted by an electrical failure. A short piece in The Argus the following day explained that, ‘Crackling electronics that definitely weren’t part of Floyd’s sonic wonderland of electrics fouled up the concert’s first half and the group’s new masterwork.’

Nonetheless, it was obviously a memorable night, with the music press almost running out of superlatives. ‘The new piece expressed succinctly in musical terms the innermost feelings of a person, including the strain of being one of this country’s top bands,’ declared New Musical Express, while The Argus described it as ‘music that inspires, bewilders, disturbs and soothes, in that order.’

To commemorate the occasion, a free photographic exhibition, Dark Side of the Moon, opens today in the Founders Room at The Dome. It includes the work of Jill Furmanovsky who, at the beginning of her career, travelled with the band and was here with them in Brighton 40 years ago.

Kate Elms
Brighton History Centre

Favourites from the Royal Pavilion Gardens – Fuchsia magellanica alba

Fuchsia magellanica alba

Charles Plumier named the Fuchsia in 1702 in honour of the renowned botanist Leonhart Fuchs whose work on medicinal plants, published in 1542, he much admired.

Fuchsia magellanica alba

This was one of Plumier’s finds that he brought back to Paris from his travels in the Americas where he had been searching for new species. It was first reported in England in the Botanical Magazine in 1789, so was well established here when the Royal Pavilion was built.

Our Fuchsia is a native of Chile and Argentina and is the plant from which many modern hardy Fuchsias have been bred. It can grow to the size of a small tree if allowed, and flowers freely from June to the first frosts, or even longer if we’re lucky with the weather, as it’s hardy to –5C.

Fuchsia magellanica alba

Such a pretty plant, with its lovely drooping tassels, the ordinary Fuchsia magellanica has red and purple flowers, and we have several of these in the gardens. But the variety alba has the sweetest pale pink colouring, very subtle and delicate, an absolute delight. It looks extremely exotic, fitting perfectly in the Pavilion planting. Look in the bed close to the Dome to see a magnificent specimen, with a second, smaller bush in the bed at the centre of the footpaths.

Volunteer Gardener, Royal Pavilion Gardens

More Suffragettes in the Dome?

Anti-suffragette postcard, 1909, HA928781

This is my last full week as Curator of Photographs for the Royal Pavilion and Museums. As such, it’s great that I can see it out by giving a paper at today’s Picture This conference on the most exciting acquisition I have worked with over the last few years. It’s not a photograph at all, but a postcard. Traditionally we’ve often collected postcards for the images they bear. But this postcard provides an insight into the struggle for women’s suffrage in the early twentieth century, and the men who were prepared to use violence to stop them.

The picture side shows four young suffragettes standing before the Houses of Parliament. Bearing flyers marked ‘Votes for Women’, their cause is described by seven lines of rather twee verse:

This is “THE HOUSE” that man built,
And these are the Suffragettes of note
Determined to fight for their right to vote;
For they mean to be, each one an M.P.
And they’ll keep their vow some fine day you’ll see
For the Suffragette is determined to get
Into, “THE HOUSE” that man built.’

By contrast, the handwritten message on the other side bears a more violent intent. Written by an anonymous local resident, it was intended for a group of men attached to HMS Hindustan, a battleship that was docked at Portsmouth for a refit. Posted on the evening of 27 April 1909, the message reads:

‘Gentlemen. A meeting will be held in the Dome, at Bton on Wednesday next by Mrs Crissy Pankhurst. We hope to see a big audience of men to make things a bit livly [sic]. Please bring a weapon to defend yourselves with as the ladies use Dog whips. I am yours truly the secretary to the suffragetts [sic]. Doors open at 7.30′.

Anti-suffragette postcard, 1909, HA928781

Fortunately, the violence planned by this man did not come to pass. Christabel Pankhurst, the leading suffragette and target of this plot, did not appear at Brighton Dome on the night in question. Indeed, there is no evidence that any such event was planned. The writer appears to have been confused by the performance of a pro-suffrage play in the Banqueting Room of the Royal Pavilion on 5 May. Entitled, ‘Man and Woman’ the performance was arranged by the Brighton and Hove Women’s Franchise Society. Described by the Brighton Herald as ‘suffragists rather than suffragettes’ this was a more moderate organisation than Pankhurst’s Women’s Social and Political Union.

In its review of the play, the Sussex Daily News commented that,’the most adverse opponent of extending the franchise to women, and even the misogynist, cannot help but admire the placid and ladylike manner in which the views of the suffragette are advocated’.

It is hard to imagine that the sender of this postcard would have been persuaded by such arguments.

Kevin Bacon, Curator of Photographs